New York City is a mecca of street art. Given, some neighborhoods have much more than others.
If you're strolling around one of the perpetually swept outdoor spaces in Midtown, you probably won't see too much street art. Maybe a sticker or two on a bench or a table.
But if you head down to the Lower East Side or out to Brooklyn, you'll see tons and tons of murals, posters plastered on walls, sticker collages and seemingly random tags.
We checked out the subreddit for NYC Street Art, and there's some cool stuff on there. It's by no means a comprehensive list of the upper echelons of the NYC art scene. It's a run down of stuff regular people see and post because they dig it.
So we pulled our favorite pieces out of the Top 20. There are some well known artists in the mix, and some you've probably never heard of, but who cares? It's not about the prestige, it's about someone else's creative expression moving you.
Enjoy the ill visuals.
1. "Tronald Dump," by Hanksy
aaronbydesign Oh this is fantastic !!! #trump #trumpPOOP #poopjokes #emojis #politics #usa #emoji #art #graffiti #spraypaint #graffitiart art by @hanksynyc
Manhattan's own Hanksy weighed in on both ours and Republican presidential candidates' worst nightmare: Donald Trump. Obviously, Hanksy's opinion of the mogul stinks to high heaven.
We're not giant fans of "the Donald" either, so much so that we considered not including him in the list just so less people will be talking about him.
But screw it, that guy's a jerk and Hanksy did here what he does best: make light of everything with corny images and/or phrases that make you chuckle.
We once saw a Hanksy tag on a toilet seat that read, "Been pissed on all my life." He's so punny...
2. Edward Snowden quote
via Imgur
Now, famous "traitor" Edward Snowden gained a ton of popularity for leaking mainly NSA documents to journalists in the hope of exposing the illegal/unethical monitoring of mass communication across the world.
The idea behind the above painting seems to be a theme of censorship. The quotation marks with nothing inside them suggests Snowden's words were painted over, though it's just as likely the quotations were added to a wall that was just "cleaned up."
We dig this because it reminds us to value our liberties, including the freedom of speech we should be allowed to enjoy daily.
3. Grafitti doors
via BK Mag
Many doors around the City are just covered with...stuff. They fall into the same category as pay phone casings, street lamps, electrical boxes, etc. Some are individual works of art, some have layers and layers of collaged imagery peeling away like some kind of leprous entryway.
They're cool. We selected one from the subreddit post, but there are so many to choose from we recommend taking a look at the whole page for some more sick door art.
4. "Nature's Revenge," by Ludo
via Imgur
Parisian visual artist Ludo has been doing his thing around the world for years now. The resulting fan community is pretty fierce when it comes to tracking Ludo's global art project, "Nature's Revenge," whose major theme is the conjunction between natural elements and social/mechanical devices.
The above image depicts a half bee ...half jet engine? There are a multitude of things to take away from this image.
One could assert that it's a commentary on the relationship between petroleum products and the world's bee population dying off at a disturbing rate.
It may be that the bees must adapt and react offensively, as fighter pilots driving themselves toward salvation. There's also sort of a "kamikaze" aspect, as drone bees die after stinging and this bee is part jet.
These things are of course totally subjective, and that's what's great about art. What do you think?
,5. "Found in SoHo," Unknown
via Imgur
As we mentioned above, we're sourcing these pieces from a subreddit. If you're unfamiliar, Reddit users don't always know or include information on where the images came from. All we know about this one is that it was "found in SoHo."
SoHo does have a good amount of street art, and it changes a lot.
This one is especially stunning, probably because the artist was very concise with where he or she allowed the paint to drip, using "flaws" to generate a specific effect-- successfully.
It looks like the image figured above is melting, or blowing away. In a way, we all are. We've all felt that horrendous sensation, and none of us looked that serene. Maybe that's the message: there's beauty in the breakdown.
6. "Head of Goliath," by Nicholas Holiber
via Animal New York
On view in Tribeca Park, Manhattan, Nicholas Holiber's "Head of Goliath" sits in an ironic place. Tribeca is known to be one of the most affluent neighborhoods around the City.
To the many of the less privileged individuals throughout the rest of NYC, Tribeca itself represents a sort of Goliath figure, a giant unconquerable force with every advantage.
But with the head of Goliath's dead yellow eyes wide open gazing back at the viewer, it's a potent reminder that nothing is unconquerable. After all, that's how much of Tribeca came to reside there: overcoming that which appears invincible or undoable.
7. "Unknown," by Amok Island
via Imgur
Amok Island is a Dutch artist based out of Australia. His work is usually sea-life themed. Often the images are of complete fish, crustaceans, etc...but sometimes, as in the photo above, the piece toys with the dismantling of food.
The juxtaposition between an Amok Island image of a whole fish and a partially dismantled one illustrates well how we visualize nature and our relationship to it. His paintings of a complete, say, river trout, may conjure thoughts of fishing, or life underwater.
But the images of cut up/butchered animals can really make you think when their viewed in context with other pieces of complete fish and what not.
There's a cartoonish stylization that's pretty consistent throughout Amok Island's recent work and that provides a good baseline for how seriously one may take the art.
But with the juxtaposition between not necessarily dead animals and the butchered ones, the stylization lends an ironic humor to every piece when taken in context with the rest. Cool.
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[via Reddit]
[Feature Image Courtesy of Instagram]